Andrei Arshavin

Russian Master

Arshavin has gone from being at one point in time the most expensive player in Arsenal history and not being able to prove his worth at the Premier League club to disappoint for the majority of his playing career as the Russian attacker could not live up to his £15 million price tag which at 2009 was a pretty high fee and its even a more significantly high fee for a club that is known for being conservative when it comes to signings players just how Arsenal has traditionally been.

After spending 5 underwhelming seasons with Arsenal, Arshavin later went on to perform with Zenit, Kubarn Krasnodar and his current club is FC Kairat.

The 35 year old Russian player is an active player of the Kazakhstan Premier League club FC Kairat which he joined back on March 18 of 2016 and has turned into an influential player. Arshavin has recently been attracting the attention of the media but not because of his contributions with FC Kairat and more due to the words that he has recently released involving doping and athletes as AndreyArshavin has recently stated that doping are necessary for specific sports.

Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger has spent decades with the club, there were the good times and surely there have been the not-so good times.

Looking back at Wenger’s heaviest defeat, Manchester United served them an ugly gift back in 2011. The game set lots of records, one notable one being the record of heaviest defeat for the club since 1896, and Wenger’s in his career at Gunner’s manager.

Wayne Rooney got a hat trick, Ashley Young hit a brace, Nani scored, Welbeck and Park appareared on the goal scorer’s list as well. Manchester United hosted Arsenal at Old Trafford in the last week of August but it didn’t end well as the score line ended 8-2. Looking back at the players that Wenger featured five years on.

Carl Jenkinson, Armand Traore, Laurent Koscielny and Johan Djourou were the backline in action. Jenkinson was sent off in the game, and has been out on loan to West Ham but he is back at the Emirates. Traore has since moved on, having featured because of the myriad of injuries Arsenal was facing. Koscienlny has grown to being one of the Premier League’s best. Djourou played less than ten games a term but Wenger retained in his usual optimism for nine years.

Francis Coquelin, Aaron Ramsey, Theo Walcott and Andrey Arshavin were in action and they played with Tomas Rosicky, leaving Robin van Persie to strike. Coquelin, Ramsey and Walcott remain but the other three have moved on. Rosicky was injury-laden and has to go, Van Persie moved to United, while Arshavin never reached his potential despite finishing sixth in the Ballon d’Or voting three years earlier.

Former Arsenal play maker Andrei Arshavin waded into the controversial discussions following the huge number of athletes that were disqualified from partaking in the Olympics.

Various Sports regulating body have been fighting to keep sports as fair competition without some athletes having an advantage using Performance Enhancing Drugs (PED). There have a lot of set-backs and successes but the topic remains one of the most talked about issues in Sports today.

Arshavin joined the discussions, sparking reactions after he suggested that almost any athlete at the Olympics uses prohibited performance enhancers. His comments provoked even citizens who were trying to get to terms with the news that the whole athletics team could be sidelined from the Rio games.
“It’s simply impossible without doping. That means swimming, skiing, cycling. I think everyone dopes,” Arshavin told interviewers in Kazakh where he plays for Kairat Almaty. Arshavin added that the ban meted out to some athletes is a political decision.

Spanish club Valencia has welcomed former Barcelona striker Martin Montoya with open arms after his contract was terminated by the La Liga Champions.

The 25 year old came through the famed La Masia academy. He made his first appearance for the club back in 2011, and has gone on to make 66 extra appearances for the senior team but the club deems him surplus to requirement as the new season is set to begin.

In the past twelve months, he was sent to Inter Milan on a loan deal in the first half before ending the second half at Real Betis. He has been called up to join the Spanish senior team but has not played his full international debut yet. He is the second signing for Valencia this summer after the club acquired Portugal’s Euro 2016 hero and former Manchester United player Nani.

Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger went out of his way to sign the player as the deal was a departure from the club’s usual transfer policy. He started the season well with his six goals in 12 Premier League appearances helping the club finish in UEFA Champions League qualification spot.

Former Arsenal striker, Andrey Arshavin says the English team are a ‘conservative club’ who missed out on a big chance to win the Premier League title this season, especially as other usual top contenders had lots of other issues to deal with.

The 34-year old striker played for the Gunners when he moved for £15 million from Zenit St Petersburg in 2009. He was sent on loan back to Zenit in the 2011/2012 season before eventually moving there on a free transfer in 2013.

Arshavin believes little has changed at the north London club since he left almost three years ago. The Russian international said:

“It’s a conservative club.

“Over the last few years Arsenal have bought two world-class players in Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez, while the goalkeeper Petr Cech has also joined. Apart from that there have not been any major changes.”

Alessandro del Piero is regarded as one of the finest players in Italian football.

The Juventus legend amassed a number of trophies including six Italian Serie A titles and one Champions League medal. Apart from the honours at the club level, he has also won the World Cup to establish himself as one of the greatest players of his generation. Even though he has won numerous individual accolades, del Piero was never named as the world Player of the Year. This remains a major absentee from his trophy cabinet. Hence, it is not surprising that every top player wants to be crowned as the best player in the world at least once in their careers.

Even though the Italian was not given this honour, he reckons that Barcelona superstar Neymar will not face the same fate. Neymar could be crowded out at Barcelona due to the performances of Luis Suarez and Lionel Messi. The latter is the most successful player when it comes to the FIFA Ballon d’Or awards after having won the title five times. Suarez came close to winning the title just like Neymar but it was not be. Del Piero says that a title will not be beyond the clutches of Neymar if he continues to show the same kind of improvement in the coming years.

The Portuguese coach Andre Villas-Boas stated back in September of 2015 that this season would be his last one as the head coach of Zenit Petersburg. The 38 year old manager wants to return to his homeland in Portugal and spend time with his family, which is why he turned down a contract extension from Zenit Saint Petersburg and now the Russian outfit has to begin their search for someone who can replace him.

Andre Villas-Boas wanted to cut his ties with Zenit Saint Petersburg even sooner but the management team of the Russian club did not let Villas-Boas leave, he will be able to leave at the end of the current season but not any sooner than that.

So far, Villas-Boas has had a superb time in charge of Zenit Saint Petersburg as he managed to win the Russian Premier League title during his first season as the head coach of the team which is an impressive accomplishment to reach for any coach that managed to take charge of a club and in his first season already manage to lift big pieces of silverware.

This is the 2nd season of Villas-Boas as the coach of the Russian outfit and things aren’t going as smoothly as before. The Portuguese manager was suspended for 6 matches after physically hitting a match official and Zenit are sitting in the outside zone of the top 5, they still have a chance of defending their title but they cant afford to drop points.

Andrei Arshavin looks set to finish his career in Russian football after having secured a move to Kuban Krasnodar.

The Russian Premier League team have signed the former Arsenal forward, who has been in steady decline over the last five years. Arshavin was once a £ 16 million signing for Arsenal, which was a club record fee at that time. Since the departure from the gunners, he has been with Zenit St Petersburg. One of the top teams in Russia, Zenit St Petersburg are now managed by former Tottenham boss Andre Villas-Boas.

The club are aware that Arshavin was coming to the end of this contract. However, the club decided not to extend this deal, which could the future of the 34-year-old in major doubt. There was speculation that he would announce his retirement even at this relatively early age. However, he appears to have been convinced to carry on playing by joining Kuban Krasnodar. Last season, the team struggled for form and finished in the 10th spot. There are a number of financial difficulties at this new outfit, but Arshavin could be one of the important players going forward. Backed by the regional government, it may not be long before the financial situation turns around.

Fabio Capello will lose his job if he does not guide the Russia National Football team to the Round of 4 in next World Cup that is going to take place in the country itself.

The top brass of the association of Football there in Russia has conveyed to Capello that with the idea of the home conditions and the backing of the crowd, the team should make it to the semis; otherwise, it would be considered a failure.

Capello had been held responsible for the early knockout that Russia suffered in Brazil last year and a large faction in the association was not in favour of him being retained at his post, but, because of the stubbornness of the president, the Italian was awarded a new deal and to be fair to him, he has been able to do a good job post the World Cup.

Russia has lost just one out of the five Euro qualifying games that they have played so far and a couple of good performances would see the team through to the main tournament.